Color television began as a series of early demonstrations and gradually became commercially available in the mid-1950s, with broader public rollout in the 1960s in many countries. The first public demonstrations used mechanical and later electronic technologies, and commercial color TVs started to appear in the United States in the early to mid-1950s, followed by wider adoption in the subsequent decade. In the UK, color broadcasts began in the late 1960s, with licences for color television introduced in 1968. For many regions, including parts of Europe and North America, the 1950s to 1960s marked the transition from black-and-white to color television, culminating in more widespread household adoption through the 1970s. If you’d like, I can pull precise dates for specific countries or programs that marked key milestones.